Greece in Winter (Chapter 2): City of Athens

All in all, we spent over 10 days in Athens… though originally we’d planned only about 5, events conspired in a way (owing to a couple of late nights and early morning missed busses) that we stayed in Athens much longer… and it probably was for the best!

We’re both the kind of travelers who hate packing too much into a single day… and who love the feeling of having ‘lived’ in a city… and that’s what the 10 days in Athens gave us. We’d rented out an apartment for a week in the Athens city center through AirBnB which also added to the whole ‘live like a local’ feel! Post that we moved into a hotel at Plaka… (oooohhh the gorgeous, quaint little Plaka!) The city in itself has soooo much to offer and most tourists discount the actual spirit of the city by just paying fleeting visits to the major museums and the Acropolis. So sure, we did visit the Acropolis and the museums, but we also made friends, figured out our favorite everyday breakfast and yogurt joints, got invited over for dinner to local Greek homes and got memorable, emotional goodbyes!

The Greek pretty much are like Indians in not just their behaviour but also their culture and their mythology …! Being lovers of Hindu mythology ourselves, we found uncanny similarities with ancient Greek mythology and it kinda made the whole trip even more demystifying and enchanting.

My personal favorite places in Athens: Since it is one of the oldest cities in Europe, this post is dedicated to the museums and archeological sites in Athens… the ones that I truly loved.

Museums I like:

1) The new Acropolis museum: I loved the collection and the clarity with which everything is explained here. It’s gorgeous. Also there’s an AV room that plays short films about the Parthenon and the Erechtheion across the street… you catch those and you’ll enjoy your visit to the Acropolis a lot more

2) Erechtheion: Erechtheion is one of the most iconic structures atop the Acropolis… though I didn’t quite like the climb up the Acropolis (the heat, and the pretty enormous climb), but the sight of the Erechtheion kinda made it worth it. There’s also the mighty Parthenon but the Erechtheion caught my fancy more.

3) The ancient archeological museum of Athens: Since the opening of the new acropolis museum, this one’s been pretty ignored by tourists and so you only find the more serious history lovers go here… a little off the city center, I thought this place had some of the most amazing archeological finds that would blow your mind.

4) The museum of Cycladic art: That’s my favorite museum in the whole of Athens. It’s not as big and is more like a private collection, but the archeological pieces and art curated from the ancient islands of Crete and Thira (Santorini) and the way they are so clearly displayed made it easy for even a novice like me to understand.

Besides these, there are numerous other museums and archeological sites that are great too… like the Byzantine museum and the ancient Aghora. Speaking about the Ancient Aghora, one day 2 when we came walking down the Acropolis, we found the Aghora shut (it’s on the downward slope from the acropolis)… so we took the little street off the right side to walk down… and that probably was the prettiest walk ever. Quaint and gorgeous… lined with orange and olive trees… we even walked into a little gallery displaying personal belongings and pictures of actress and ex. Greek culture minister Melina Mercouri (where we learnt a great deal about the Greek Treasures that were apparently ‘taken’ by England) and then stumbled into the prettiest little café in Athens (sorry forgot the name of the café ) for a glass of Sangria! Bliss!

All pics by Kalyan Challapalli 🙂

Hope you like them…

Can’t go to Greece and not have those ‘catty’ experiences!

Photographed atop the Acropolis. Coat from a Korean designer in Seoul, Adidas Sneakers for a good, sturdy climb and cap from a local Himachali store in Shimla 🙂